Who was going to win the Second Sino-Japanese war if the Pacific War never happened?

What if Japan did not join the axis and focused its entire military power on China? Would Japan eventually defeat the Chinese and how long would that take?
 
Neither would win. China's not strong enough to beat Japan, and Japan didn't have the strength to forcibly occupy all of China, nor the will or ability to offer China surrender terms she could live with.
 
The Chinese. All things considered, no one was going to support Japan's monopolization of China, save Hitler. The Allies could simply pour more Lend Lease into supporting the United Front and Japan would continue to be bogged down in an unwinnable war in the countryside. It's not impossible for Japan to win, but that required a West that didn't have vested interest in Chinese markets, an unwillingness to have their access to them hampered by Japanese tolls and resource hoarding, or revulsion for Japanese atrocities against the civilian population.
 
If there are no restrictions on Japanese purchasing and use of the international credit system the war can go on a long time. Of course, all that stuff happened before PH. The Chinese can keep fighting a long time as long as the US and others can dump a lot of supplies on China. OTOH if the west is going to send tons of aid to China, but otherwise hands off then see the products of Unit 731 and also chemicals used rather extensively. In that scenario I expect eventually mutual exhaustion results in a peace where Japan gets more than Manchukuo, gets some economic concessions, but way less than they wanted. I expect they will have to deal with a communist insurgency in occupied territory, but given the brutality they would use to suppress it...
 
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